


a memento of us, in silver

by grandstander



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 18:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13664850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grandstander/pseuds/grandstander
Summary: There is a Demacian tradition of giving a lover a gift made of silver their first Snowdown together.





	a memento of us, in silver

**Author's Note:**

> hello! it is i, local darius/garen shipper. i'm here with more nonsensical rambling shit 
> 
> this was intended to be a snowdown/christmas fic but i never got around to finishing it, so i at least tried to before valentine's got here. i had different ideas for this fic but it just kind of... developed on it's own. i'm not entirely satisfied with it cause i feel like it goes too deep when i wanted this to be more light / casual and fluff oriented. i also don't feel like it's very cohesive or very good? just a lot of segmented inner monologues with some dialogue exchanged here and there. 
> 
> regardless, i hope you all can find some enjoyment in it.

Darius was sitting with his legs crossed at the ankles, cheek rested around his curled fist and snow still lining the edges of his boots. There was never a shortage of it in the Freljord, especially during the winter months, and those of Snowdown as well. Garen had asked him to come, and so he did because these instances were rare. Their chances to spend more than an hour skirting around their necessary loyalties with only a stray glance to bind them were few and far between. To discard those ties, to be simply two men in a room, was a luxury that demanded planning and caution so their affair would not follow them past the door frame where it took place.

And thus Darius is not without curiosity when he can be given such an opportunity to indulge, so he cocks his head to the side and away from his hand, fingers instead curling aimlessly as he watches the Demacian silently. He can deduce that Garen came to the inn much earlier, at least long enough for him to discard all of his armor and traveling winter attire, arrange the room how he saw fit, and to set a table with coffee and tea for their respective preferences. His boots were placed by the door, already dry, and his winter clothes lying neatly near a burning fireplace. There is an obvious note of care and preparation in his behavior, enough to show he had specifically planned more than he conveyed (granted, their arrangement letters needed to be vague). 

Darius decides that he is content observing Garen if for the time being, considering the Demacian has done little more than to greet him then continue working on.. whatever it was he was trying to finish. Which, he persumes, has something to do with the table he was setting. Darius hears only the occasional mutter in Demacian from him, but it is endearing to watch at the very least. Garen says something about the glasses, it's all he can pick up in what little of the language he knows, but his expression tells him maybe Garen’s not entirely happy with having such simple dishes. The bottle sitting near them adds to that suspicion, decorated with white and gold paper and long curving letters titling it. It looked painfully out of place among the simple cutlery.

The general sighs, laying his hand against his thigh as he takes the cup of coffee finally, which had grown lukewarm since he’d arrived. He watches Garen as he runs a hand through his hair, then come to rest at the back of his neck, while his eyes bore into the wooden dining table with candles lit at the center. Darius notes that they smell of apples and pine trees. It was, truthfully, a rusticly charming arrangement.

Garen was however, as Darius had come to learn long ago, a perfectionist, born of his own upbringing and the life he had lead. It demanded from him nothing short of perfection, and thus in turn he expected that which he surrounded himself to adhere to the same self imposed law. If his fork was laid down crookedly, he’d stare at it as if it were some offense, then right it himself. It’s the same obsession with perfectionism that has made the edges of his nerves frayed. It is the same compulsion that forces him to stare holes into the dining table, makes him bite his bottom lip just slightly, all of which Darius observes patiently and quietly.

He can tell Garen is nervous from having observed him for so long (here and in the months past)— though that might not have been the right word for now, really, but watching him was often the best way to understand him. He was so private, so reserved, that his body language spoke more for him than his own voice would. Darius couldn’t say he minded, though, since he had a particular fondness for unraveling such a fortress of a man with just a hint of a smile and a sly word. It was something that inevitably drew him to the Demacian. To bury his teeth into him and to find how much Garen begins to crumble when he is forced outside of the expectation of paragon and soldier burned a desire in him to know more, to know  _ him _ , to know him in ways that no other did. That desire gradually consumed him, until here he was, two weeks before Snowdown, watching the same man as if he was the only star in a night sky.

“What you’ve done is enough,” Darius says to break the silence as he sets aside his empty cup. “Come sit with me.” 

His voice breaks Garen from his trance, looking up with wide blue eyes and humming in response to the invitation he was given. It seems to take him a moment to process that Darius must been watching him for a while, and that forces a hint of color to rise in his skin that could not be reasonably explained by the weather or the warmth of the room. Garen’s hands fold in front of himself, the nail of his thumb pressing a hard line into his skin as he tried to reign himself in (tried being the key principal, but it always felt nearly impossible to keep himself so well composed when there was only himself, Darius, and the space between them). 

“My apologies,” he begins, and it’s a beginning Darius expects to here, and it’s one he’s heard many times. “I was trying to…” His voice falls into silence, almost gently, while he tries to gather how to explain himself, but words escape him like the last leaves fall from trees in autumn. He’s always left with bare branches and an empty throat, it feels. 

Garen’s lips part, one of his hands rising higher in front of his chest while the other remains open palmed and in front of his waist, but no sound leaves him and just as his mouth closes his hands fall, the open palm curling around the closed fist. 

He does that often— tries to open himself but usually finds emptiness or uncertainty, and thus recedes into something more familiar to salvage what he can of the attempt to do so. “Can I get you anything?” he asks instead, because he knows that, he knows how to serve another. 

Darius is familiar with this rhythm, he’s both watched and been apart of it. “No,” he answers as he decides in this particular moment he’ll humor it, mostly for Garen’s sake. He is only met with a hum and a nod from the Demacian, his gaze shifting while his thumbs move rhythmically in his hands’ folded position. He’s quiet for much too long, evidence enough that he had not planned on what to say or do next when given such an answer. 

“How did you manage to find the time for this, anyway?” Darius asks, extending a proverbial hand to the other man. Garen seems to leap at it, his chest rising as he inhales, a subtle sign of discomfort slowly fall from his shoulders.

“Ah… it was by chance, in some ways,” he begins, his hands unfolding and beginning to gesture as he spoke. “Mother and Father had decided— along with our kitchen staff— that we should have Freljordian boar and elk for our celebration this year. The staff are often asked for their preferences as they, along with everyone who works for our estate, usually join us.” 

Garen doesn’t seem to notice he’s rambling, or that the question could be answered much more simply, but Darius also doesn’t have the desire nor heart to stop him. It could be so difficult to pry anything from him that Darius simply allowed any moment in which Garen began to let his voice flow freely last as long as he can make it. 

It was strangely both easy and one of the most difficult tasks he’d ever faced trying to weave through that man’s mind, or to map the paths of his veins and thoughts. A kiss made him soft and pliant, like Darius could mold him in his vary hands— but to get him to  **speak** , to tell Darius what he  _ wanted _ , was like trying to pull apart a lock made of steel with only his hands. Garen had both been denied and denied himself any want or love that the slightest touch of it melted his reservations. So when Garen  _ does  _ open himself steadily, Darius leans back in the armchair, watching the other man as he spoke of his family and his home.

“Father made the trips before me, but it is only every few years we have such a meal,” he continues, Darius still listening in silence. “I was asked to make the trip this year to the village where we have bought the animals from in years past, and I thought…” Garen’s voice trails off, a warm hue coloring his cheeks as he clears his throat and he clasps his hands together once more.

“I thought I could see you,” he finally says with a voice softer than before. It’s the gentle tone of his voice that makes Darius inhale deeply, makes him both want to ruin the man and see how soft and tender he could truly become with just the right words, the right touch. He swallows the desirely quickly, however, because now isn’t the time to indulge it.

A half smile comes to his lips, head bowing forward as he sits up with his elbows resting on his knees. “Well, now you have me, Captain,” Darius answers, an amused, teasing lilt to his voice. 

“You needn’t phrase it like that...” Garen says, his gaze falling and a meek smile on his lips while his voice still lacked its usual depth. Darius only chuckles in response, but it warms Garen’s heart to hear such a sound nonetheless, and his posture slackens while his smile spreads further. 

“Your tea’s probably cold, you know,” Darius adds, gesturing with a finger towards the cup before his hands fold together in front of him (his subtle smile hasn’t diminished). 

“Ah… most likely,” he agrees, though he makes no move towards it. “I had forgotten I’d made it after I made your coffee. There is more, of course, if you would like.”

“Warm up your tea, and I’ll have another cup,” Darius answers.

Garen hums in response as an answer, nodding briefly before turning and picking up a dark pot set to the side among the dinner arrangement. Darius assumes it is the coffee, so he picks up the cup he had set aside and raises it when Garen comes to his side to fill it. Garen leaves the pot on the small table that sits between their two chairs, finally joining Darius as he settles down and picks up his forgotten cup of tea.

“You’re not going to warm it up?”

“I am quite used to drinking my tea cold, unfortunately.” 

“Really? You don’t seem like the type to forget anything.” 

“I do tend to get a little… absorbed in my work at times.”

Darius only chuckles in response, admittedly amused by the implication that Garen forgets his tea often enough to be indifferent to whether it was warm or not. The low rumble of his laugh brings a slight smile to Garen’s lips, and at the very least, he begins to relax. 

“Did you cook the meal, too?” Darius asks after a quiet moment, nodding his head in the direction of the set table. 

“No,” Garen answers simply, to which Darius looks at him and raises an eyebrow in silent curiosity. “I paid the innkeeper for a cooked meal,” he finishes, which seems to sate Darius’s inquiries for the time being, so he hums and nods his head before finishing his drink. “I do not know what your tastes are, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.” 

“Do you know what is it?” 

“No.” 

Darius laughs definitively this time, quick and short, but clearly heard. Garen does too, though it was a quieter in comparison (he was, however, smiling slightly as well). The good humor of the atmosphere is enough to settle comfortably into the evening, Garen’s apprehension only a faint thought in the back of his mind. It surfaces only as a shadow, but it comes and goes like a tide, rather than threatening to shallow him. 

“It looks rather simple, admittedly,” he continues after having drank some of his cold tea, “A beef cut with some seasoned vegetables, I do believe.” Darius hums idly in response as he sets his cup aside, patiently waiting for Garen to finish his tea. They’re both content to talk comfortably for a time, a luxury they’re rarely afforded, thus it’s languidly taken so as to ferment in the moment they have to do so. 

“Would you like your gift before or after our meal?” Garen asks after a lull in the conversation, his voice only a note lower, the whisper of his worry finally creeping back. Their lack of freedom to simply be lovers always seemed to haunt him, it always stalked his shadow and hung like low thunderheads outside their door when they tried to simply be as lovers would. A simple gift would never truly be only what it was; it wasn’t just love, it was also a risk. A love such as theirs, though, was inherently a risk as soon as they stepped foot in a room together. 

“Gift?” Darius asks. 

“Yes— I.. I wanted to get you one, for the holiday,” Garen explains, his hand gesturing slightly before it curled back around the porcelain cup he held. 

“Now is fine,” Darius answers after a moment of consideration, leaning back in the chair as he watches Garen, who raises his eyes to meet the deep rust color of his gaze. Those eyes, he thinks, reminds him of a beating heart, fire, and the sun; everything he wasn’t. They remind him that Darius is his counterpart in every sense of the word. They are two sides of the same world, the same coin. Garen thinks it was destiny to love him in some way (even if its a love that can only be had in secret, he thinks he doesn’t mind so much, at least when he can have Darius like this). 

“I don’t have anything for you,” Darius adds as Garen gets up, seemingly to look through the neatly packed luggage he brought. It was typical of him, even packing for such a long trip through the Freljord, all his clothing and essentials were either carefully wrapped or neatly rolled into bundles. Always so efficient, even when he was off the battlefield. 

“I do not mind,” Garen replies as he sets aside a thin, white rectangular box; elegant and modest, like him. His voice sounded warm, and a soft smile had come to his lips as he reassembled his necessities into the same well-kept arrangement. Despite what he said, the sight of him so content and comfortable made Darius wish he had something for him regardless. 

When he comes back, he holds the box out to Darius, and now he can see the slight, subtle shimmer of silver leaf patterns on it. He could only see them now that he held it in his hands, so he turns it slightly to watch the light reflect across the patterns that would otherwise be overlooked or altogether unseen without the light to reflect them. It decidedly reminds him of Garen more, a man who was much more than he appeared to be at a first glance (beautiful, almost hidden, and graceful).

Inside was a simple silver chain of modest length laid in soft, white cloth. The weight was more than Darius expected as he picked it up and let it roll across his fingers, his thumb stroking the smooth, cool metal. Knowing Garen, he’d wager it was pure silver in make, and despite its simplicity he still felt something like this was too regal to be worn around his neck.

When he realizes Garen is watching him precariously in his seat, with his hands folded in his lap, Darius looks up and gives him a half grin. “A necklace?” he asked, a teasingly lilt to his voice. “Seems rather unexpected, even for you,” he laughs, but he keeps it in his hand regardless, the open box sitting on his knee.

“I know,” Garen agrees, his gaze falling while his habit of stroking his thumb over his other hand when he was anxious began again. “We have a.. small tradition of sorts in Demacia where partners will exchange gifts made from silver, partially or wholly, their first Snowdown together.” 

A blush rose to color his skin again as he spoke, and his eyes still hadn’t moved back to Darius since he looked away. It becomes even more apparent to Darius why he had been so tightly wound with worry when he first arrived. The necklace in turn feels heavier in his hand with that knowledge, knowing that it is a gift given out of Demacian tradition— but a gift given out of  _ love _ , too, and so the metal also feels warmer. In Garen’s admittance, it also names their relationship as lovers in the air between them, something that is danced around carefully, so his chest feels heavy and in a rare moment Darius feels unsure. Love makes him unsure, gentleness and tenderness makes him feel rigid and frozen. 

“Quaint,” Darius finally comments, but his voice lacks his usual bravado, “But fitting of you.” 

Garen smiles in response, also finally looking up at him. “I doubt it is practiced much any more.. It is more of an older tradition.” His hand raises to rub the back of his neck, and silence covers them like a thick cotton blanket. 

“Do you like it?” he finally asks, an uncharacteristic timidness in his voice, “If not, I could get you something else-” 

“I like it,” Darius interjects as his hand curls tighter around the silver necklace. He tries to anchor himself to it, to make it a tether so he doesn’t drift too far from this moment. If he did, it’d ruin what little time they have together. He reinforces his desire to keep himself here with his lover by bringing it to his neck and clicking the clasp together, letting it rest idly against his chest, only pieces of the silver visibly underneath his shirt. It felt so small and significant all at once. 

His answer is enough to satisfy Garen, evident in the way his features soften, a gentle smile on his lips. “We should eat before the meal gets cold,” he says, rising from his seat.

Darius looks up at him in silence with a hand lingering against his chest, an idle touch on the necklace around his neck. His silence holds him, and he only watches Garen for a moment, the light of the room crowning him and making the smooth corners of his features look soft. He looks near angelic, all soft edges and gold-kissed, nothing like the soldier in all his steel and white light. Darius remembers the cold of his voice, the deep vibrations that would cut him just as sharply as his sword in a battle. Yet here Garen was, a contented expression, waiting for Darius to join him for a meal. It felt strange to think about, that he began to press through this man in both curiosity and an innate draw he could not articulate (like how the sun and moon will always chase each other), and now this is where they found themselves. The way Garen looks at him makes him think that whatever tragedy will become of them will be worth it, because he at least knew him like this, he had felt him and he had kissed him. They had loved each other. 

When he finally stands, Garen’s eyes follow him, and Darius wonder if he could drown in them like one could in the sea. He thinks that perhaps he could. 

Garen’s hand comes to rest against the curve of his jaw, pressing for him to tilt his head down, and he kisses him, slow and languid, his lips moving against his as the sea’s waves roll. It always draw Darius to him, like an orbit, a madness or a craving, and it reminds him of his desire to  _ have  _ Garen and to  _ know  _ him. Darius can move with him in a kiss, he can move with him when it is their hands and their bodies, and he knows the rhythm of their banter like his own skin— but it’s when Garen is only soft and gentle, light like a breeze all around him, that Darius hesitates. 

An indulgence in tenderness is not afforded in Noxus. He needed to learn brutality, harshness, and an ironclad will to survive. In the rare moment of a soft intimacy, it is Garen who leads him, and carefully draws Darius’s hands into his chest to feel his soul and beating heart. Darius might have begun the messy, delicate, and all too bittersweet rhythm, but Garen lead them through the softness the heart demanded. 

Darius chases the kiss, following Garen’s lips momentarily as one of his hands comes to rest at his waist, his grip firm in order to anchor himself. Garen lets him, lips parting and head tilting to allow Darius to have him (another expression of his love and trust). When they part, Garen’s hand still rests against his jaw, and his eyes, bright and blue, are still watching him like he’s the only thing that matters. 

“I am glad you’re here with me,” he says, his deep voice warm and soothing. Darius hums in response, finally unfurling from around the Demacian as they sit to have their meal. 

 

As they eat and talk idly once more, only the sound of a fire crackling behind them, Garen curls his fingers underneath Darius’s hand resting against the table. Their hands laced together without commentary as they talked, a solace and an anchor in this room to be taken for only as long as the night would allow. 

A love is a love, even if only living on small tokens and stolen moments. 


End file.
